Who are you?
by Athena's phoenix
Summary: Potions class...  As usual, filled with insults and taunts and daunting professors...but what if something went wrong?  What is it that you fear you are most of all?


a/n: a little heads up in case someone is bothered by this, but there is some of OOCness in here. Sorry, I did try to keep it to a minimum.

disclaimer: I do not live in England, therefore I cannot be JKR, and so I cannot own Harry Potter. I can dream though...

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><p><em><strong>Who are you? <strong>__Or__** Such a fool**_

"-arrogant, spoiled, insolent little brat, just like your father." Severus Snape sneered down at the boy below him. Harry Potter didn't look at him, his jaw clenched as he stared hotly at his cauldron. Severus went on: "How you manage to screw up the Nightmare potion when the instructions are clearly written on the board is a mystery to me. Though I see that just like your father, Potter, you're enjoying all the attention-I suppose that it makes you _happy_ to see how very alike you two are-"

"Leave me alone."

The potions master glowered down at the sixth-year, a cold fury sliding across his features before he regained control of them.

"Disrespectful-"

"Leave me alone... sir." Potter glared up at Snape, and the professor noticed that the boy's cauldron-in fact his whole table-was rattling.

"Why you impertinent-"

KA-BOOOOOOOM!

With a resounding boom, Harry's cauldron exploded, instantly vaporizing the potion inside along with the ingredients laid out beside it. Being the nearest, Harry was flung a few yards before slamming his head on one of the lab tables across the aisle.

Severus watched as Potter's cauldron exploded, spewing vapors and sending the boy himself smashing into a lab table at an odd angle. As Potter flew across the room, he inhaled the potion fumes and an odd thing began to happen: his form started to change. It flickered rapidly between a skeletal man that Severus knew to be Voldemort, and a small, ragged, beat up child that looked like a much younger version of Potter himself. Just as the boy-who-lived was about to crash into the tables, his form settled on a new, yet hauntingly familiar face. The face of James Potter.

Professor Snape saw this before he himself was thrown across the room in the blast.

The classroom looked like a battle zone when Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore wrenched open the doors. He had felt the explosion while walking to the great Hall, and wouldn't have been surprised if the rest of the castle had felt it as well. Now that he saw the damage, he was shocked at the results.

The lab tables had been splintered by the blast and chunks of them lay strewn across the room. There were bodies everywhere...Wait-_bodies?_

Dumbledore sprinted inside, and knelt before one of the students. As he did so, he felt his magic ripple when he came into contact with the potion's vapors. His vision dimmed as the world slipped away.

Severus blinked groggily, wondering how he had come to be lying down. The last thing that he recalled was lecturing Potter..._Oh Merlin, the explosion._ Getting unsteadily to his feet, he pushed pieces of cauldrons off of him and looked around. Suddenly the doors to the room burst open and the headmaster came flying in, before- before- _what is happening to him?_ His appearance was changing- just like Potter's had. Dumbledore's form shifted between his own and that of another man, one that Severus was sure he had seen somewhere before. The older wizard's eyes widened before they unfocused, and he fell to the ground. He collapsed in the form of Gellert Grindelwald.

The potions master looked and crouched beside a nearby student- at least, Severus assumed that she was one of his students, though she looked to be about twelve. As he checked her pulse, the girl stirred, and blinked slowly up at him.

"Who're you?" She asked thickly gazing up at her professor in confusion. It was then that Severus realized that if everyone else had changed their appearances...then he probably had as well.

"I believe that you just took my question. Which student are you? It is apparent that we have all changed our appearances due to the Potter brat's error."

"Professor Snape?" Snape nodded curtly.

"I'm Draco Malfoy, sir. What- what do you mean, we changed our appearances?"

In reply, Severus conjured a mirror, thrusting it at Draco before thinking to look in it himself. Just as he was going to conjure another one, Draco shrieked, dropping the glass.

"What is it, boy?"

"I look like- I look like-" he gasped. "Oh, Merlin, no..." he breathed, his face dropping into his hands. Now a bit uneasy, Severus gingerly picked up the mirror- only to drop it again once he had seen his reflection.

"How- how can it be...?" he murmured. He looked just like James Potter.

Severus was snapped out of his daze by students gradually waking up around the room. He knew his duty as Hogwarts staff, and made his way around to them, checking to see if they were unhurt, and handing them the mirror. They all reacted similarly to Draco, and, if he were to admit it, himself.

Students moaned after seeing their reflections, and the Granger girl had screamed.

"No! That's not_ me!_ I'm _nothing_ like that person- I'm _smart,_ I _know_ I am-so _how do I look like her?_"

Severus began to gather that these were the things that they least wanted to be, but feared that they were. The Weasley boy had helped make that point clear with his strong reaction to his appearance. He had gone off worse that Granger, hollering and yelling and cursing before bursting into tears and saying that he was doomed.

Eventually Severus had twenty four students accounted for-that left only one. Potter.

He made his way over to the area of the room where the boy's cauldron had exploded, and began to shift the rubble. It was only after fifteen minutes of searching that he found the sixteen year old, and saw that they looked exactly alike. Severus looked like the elder Potter- but so did Harry.

The potions master bent down to check the boy's pulse, and found it to be weak. He was still unconscious. Considering, Severus cast an _Ennervate_ to awaken him. It didn't work as well as it should have, but Potter wearily blinked his eyes open. When he saw Severus, he immediately closed them again.

"No," he murmured, "Go 'way. I don 'wanna see you. If 'm dead, 'm dead, but you're just like Dudley. Or worse. No more pain, go 'way _please._"

"Mr. Potter."

"Y're a bully. Just- just leave me 'lone. I've had e'nuf of bullies in m' life."

"Mr. Potter, listen to me-"

"No, jus' let me be. I got 'long wih'thout you for this long. I c'n manage...a little...while...longer..."

"Listen to me, Potter, I'm not your father! Potter- Potter, are you there? Can you answer me?"

Severus looked down at the child in shock, beginning to yell, panicking. Then, carefully, he bent to pick the boy up. It was with fear that he saw his features returning to normal, when everyone else was still changed. His breath quickening, Severus rushed from the dungeons to the hospital wing, wondering how he could have been such a fool.

Finis

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><p>Albus Dumbledore woke up to the sound of whimpering. He quickly glanced around, seeing a group of unfamiliar- and in a few cases familiar- people.<p>

"What's going on here?" he asked, standing.

"Who are you?" one of the girls (Draco Malfoy) asked sharply.

"Albus Dumbledore, of course, and who might _you_ be, young lady?" The girl cringed.

"Before you ask, you might want to take a look in the mirror. You see, sir, your appearance was changed by the potion as well."

Dumbledore took the proffered mirror, and felt his insides go cold. Looking back at him from the glass was none other than Gellert Grindlewald.

"I'm Draco Malfoy, by the way. Who do _you_ look like? You seem kind of upset, sir?"

"Never mind that!" exclaimed an older woman, "Professor Snape just rushed Harry to the hospital wing- something was really wrong with him."

Dumbledore jumped at that, and turned to rush after his potions professor. As he left, he heard the woman murmur, "Grindlewald, though...I wonder why?"

_If only you knew._

Severus Snape was slumped against the wall outside the infirmary, sinking down to the floor. Harry Potter was not well. In truth, the chances of his survival were slim.

The potions master moaned. If the boy really did leave this world...

_Oh, Merlin, if only he had known._

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><p>So...What do you think? Okay? Horrible? Or is it the most amazing thing that you have ever read? (I'm just kidding about the "amazing thing", really...)<p>

Anyway, please review!_  
><em>


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